Your pal The Peasant wishes you, my grand and wonderful readers
a wonderful and fun-filled Halloween! Here's an idea for making
the occasion even more spook-tacular:
Go trick-or-treating wearing a business suit, highly-polished shoes,
and a Donald Trump mask! If you feel that you are a bit long in the
tooth for it, those of you with young children, grandchildren,
nieces and/or nephews (you can do this with the kids of friends too!),
can go trick-or-treating together! Go out in your neighborhoods,
or --- if you all are feeling especially gutsy --- go out in a heavily-
Democratic neighborhood! A nice touch would be some MAGA caps.
Oh, if you are going to do this in a Dem community, it may be more
prudent to wear some good running shoes. But hey, it's Halloween,
and there's nothing like using the day to get up the noses of the
lefties for a great Halloween trick!
Anyway, whatever your planned Halloween activities, may you have
a ball! We'll get together again in the coming week!
MEM
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Economic Folly, California Style
In recent years, a state once famously lauded for
being a place of undreamed of prosperity not only
throughout the United States but in many other
countries, resulting in many people moving to
California from these places, has done a shocking
180 degree turn through raising existing taxes
through the ceiling and creating a truckload of
new taxes, all to the pain of individual and corporate
taxpayers. The cure for the pain felt by both has been
to pack up and leave California for places where
prosperity is not punished but rather is encouraged.
Liberals, both in and outside of California have
claimed that taxpayer migration is not a result of
the increases in the quantity and the rates of taxation
there, nor is it at all harmful (?!) to state tax revenue.
They also seem to think that the hard-earned money
of well-to-do Californians would be better used by
the state government in terms of doing more
economic good for everyone there, a common
delusion among left-wingers. Some even think that
California should take a page from far left-wing
Democrat candidates for the presidency, Senators
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and also go
after the assets of the wealthier people of that
state (assets such as investment portfolios, bank
accounts, etc.).
However, Stanford economists Joshua Rauh and
Ryan Shyu studied how upper-tax bracket income
earners responded to a 2012 referendum,
Proposition 30, wholeheartedly supported by Democrats
that raised the top marginal rate on California taxpayers
with over $1 million in income to 13.3% from 10.3%.
Additionally, the top rates of individuals earning over
$250,000 also increased between one and two percentage
points. The Stanford study discovered the inevitable
result; a sizeable uptick in the rate of departure by
taxpayers with $5+ million in income following the
Prop. 30 tax increases, and a similar outflow for earners
in the brackets between $2 million and $5 million.
Recently reported on by the Wall Street Journal,
the point that all this makes is that the likelihood of
a wealthy resident of California moving out of state
increased by approximately 40% after Prop. 30. And
after the recent federal tax reform which has rendered
state and local taxes no longer 100% deductible, the
bite of the increased tax burden has been more fully felt
by California's wealthier residents, resulting in an
increased incentive to move to a lower-tax locale.
Other consequences of the Prop. 30 tax hikes revealed
by the study include high earners responding to them
by, among various strategies for reducing their tax bills,
simply working less, that is to say, reducing billable hours.
Some other big earners deferred compensation.
In short, the study estimates that migration out of California
along with taxpayer behavioral responses have taken away
45.2% of the expected revenue gains California was counting
on from the dramatic tax increase on top earning taxpayers.
This shoots a huge hole in the longtime argument of liberal
economists that the wealthy don't care about marginal tax
rates and increasing the top income tax rate to 70% will
neither affect revenues nor incentives to work. Moreover,
America's wealthy have cared greatly about marginal tax
rates for decades, at least since the 1940s when they simply
stopped paying the higher taxes on their earnings which
were just beyond the top marginal tax line and the federal
government, in the middle of fighting a war and later
trying to return the country to and maintain a peacetime
footing, merely gave these folks and their businesses
a wink and a nod. Uncle Sam knew that the economy
would have been thrown into some instability if he were
to have gone after the biggest individual and corporate
earners to shake loose some much-needed revenue with
aggressive tax collecting methods employed by the IRS
and instead let these parties be. This resulted in further
expansion of investing in and expanding businesses,
especially those which made and supplied important
materiel for the war effort, and later Apparently California's
state government hasn't learned anything from our
economic history, if ever it bothered to make the effort;
hence, California's severe economic woes. The top
marginal tax rate in the 1940s? 94%. Throughout the
1950s, '60s and '70s this rate settled back to no lower
than 70%.
In light of this remarkably revealing study, the Democrat
regime in Sacramento should reconsider their eagerness
to further plunder the earnings of their state's biggest income
earners. For one thing, whenever the next recession arrives
these Dems will have to tap into the middle class even more
than they presently do just to pay the tab for all of their
big spending dream programs they have created in the present
boom times once the state's economy goes from boom to
KA-BOOM! And still more wealthy California residents
will flee to states with lower or no income taxes.
But does anyone really think that California's Dem governor
and legislature will heed any of these warnings inherent in
the analysis of economists Rauh and Shyu? As we, my grand
readers, visit here today California's ruling Democrats are
campaigning hard to get a referendum in 2020 to remove
their state's constitutional tax cap on commercial property.
If it is accepted by the state's electorate then Californians
can kiss their private sector jobs goodbye, for businesses
will pack and move just as high income earners currently are,
packing up and taking Californians' jobs with them.
Let's see how that state's Democrat rulers deal with a bankrupt
ghost town of a state. California we have gone, back to where we
started from, la la la, la la la, la la la la, ...
MEM
being a place of undreamed of prosperity not only
throughout the United States but in many other
countries, resulting in many people moving to
California from these places, has done a shocking
180 degree turn through raising existing taxes
through the ceiling and creating a truckload of
new taxes, all to the pain of individual and corporate
taxpayers. The cure for the pain felt by both has been
to pack up and leave California for places where
prosperity is not punished but rather is encouraged.
Liberals, both in and outside of California have
claimed that taxpayer migration is not a result of
the increases in the quantity and the rates of taxation
there, nor is it at all harmful (?!) to state tax revenue.
They also seem to think that the hard-earned money
of well-to-do Californians would be better used by
the state government in terms of doing more
economic good for everyone there, a common
delusion among left-wingers. Some even think that
California should take a page from far left-wing
Democrat candidates for the presidency, Senators
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and also go
after the assets of the wealthier people of that
state (assets such as investment portfolios, bank
accounts, etc.).
However, Stanford economists Joshua Rauh and
Ryan Shyu studied how upper-tax bracket income
earners responded to a 2012 referendum,
Proposition 30, wholeheartedly supported by Democrats
that raised the top marginal rate on California taxpayers
with over $1 million in income to 13.3% from 10.3%.
Additionally, the top rates of individuals earning over
$250,000 also increased between one and two percentage
points. The Stanford study discovered the inevitable
result; a sizeable uptick in the rate of departure by
taxpayers with $5+ million in income following the
Prop. 30 tax increases, and a similar outflow for earners
in the brackets between $2 million and $5 million.
Recently reported on by the Wall Street Journal,
the point that all this makes is that the likelihood of
a wealthy resident of California moving out of state
increased by approximately 40% after Prop. 30. And
after the recent federal tax reform which has rendered
state and local taxes no longer 100% deductible, the
bite of the increased tax burden has been more fully felt
by California's wealthier residents, resulting in an
increased incentive to move to a lower-tax locale.
Other consequences of the Prop. 30 tax hikes revealed
by the study include high earners responding to them
by, among various strategies for reducing their tax bills,
simply working less, that is to say, reducing billable hours.
Some other big earners deferred compensation.
In short, the study estimates that migration out of California
along with taxpayer behavioral responses have taken away
45.2% of the expected revenue gains California was counting
on from the dramatic tax increase on top earning taxpayers.
This shoots a huge hole in the longtime argument of liberal
economists that the wealthy don't care about marginal tax
rates and increasing the top income tax rate to 70% will
neither affect revenues nor incentives to work. Moreover,
America's wealthy have cared greatly about marginal tax
rates for decades, at least since the 1940s when they simply
stopped paying the higher taxes on their earnings which
were just beyond the top marginal tax line and the federal
government, in the middle of fighting a war and later
trying to return the country to and maintain a peacetime
footing, merely gave these folks and their businesses
a wink and a nod. Uncle Sam knew that the economy
would have been thrown into some instability if he were
to have gone after the biggest individual and corporate
earners to shake loose some much-needed revenue with
aggressive tax collecting methods employed by the IRS
and instead let these parties be. This resulted in further
expansion of investing in and expanding businesses,
especially those which made and supplied important
materiel for the war effort, and later Apparently California's
state government hasn't learned anything from our
economic history, if ever it bothered to make the effort;
hence, California's severe economic woes. The top
marginal tax rate in the 1940s? 94%. Throughout the
1950s, '60s and '70s this rate settled back to no lower
than 70%.
In light of this remarkably revealing study, the Democrat
regime in Sacramento should reconsider their eagerness
to further plunder the earnings of their state's biggest income
earners. For one thing, whenever the next recession arrives
these Dems will have to tap into the middle class even more
than they presently do just to pay the tab for all of their
big spending dream programs they have created in the present
boom times once the state's economy goes from boom to
KA-BOOM! And still more wealthy California residents
will flee to states with lower or no income taxes.
But does anyone really think that California's Dem governor
and legislature will heed any of these warnings inherent in
the analysis of economists Rauh and Shyu? As we, my grand
readers, visit here today California's ruling Democrats are
campaigning hard to get a referendum in 2020 to remove
their state's constitutional tax cap on commercial property.
If it is accepted by the state's electorate then Californians
can kiss their private sector jobs goodbye, for businesses
will pack and move just as high income earners currently are,
packing up and taking Californians' jobs with them.
Let's see how that state's Democrat rulers deal with a bankrupt
ghost town of a state. California we have gone, back to where we
started from, la la la, la la la, la la la la, ...
MEM
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Playing Political Football With The Family
So many things, too many things these days have become
politicized in the ongoing and escalating political war
over what direction our country should take in establishing
and maintaining a manner of governance. Thus it should
come as no surprise that the family, the bedrock of
American life and society, is now considered to be fair
game for the politicizers, especially those on the Left.
A new poll shows that a paltry 33% of liberals "agree
that marriage is needed to create strong families,"
according to the Institute for Family Studies.
The numbers, by the way, for conservatives are 80%
in agreement and 55% of moderates.
Here, the conservatives hit the bullseye. Children get both
emotional and material security, and indeed a loving
household with a mother who shows lots of sensitivity and
empathy and a father who is engaged and protective.
Now, children who are raised by same-sex parents, or by a
single mother or by other nontraditional arrangements
can be emotionally healthy and well adjusted. That being
said, children need a balance of secure attachment and
healthy separation, which the two-parent family model
certainly provides. Mothers are best at nurturing, while
fathers instruct their children to control their aggression
and become independent, learning to assume responsibility
for their words and actions.
Children of single parents, because of the family makeup
and environment in which they were raised, miss out
on being able to observe a loving relationship between two
adults, and this can pose difficulties for them when they
grow up and form relationships which could lead to starting
families. Adults, especially in families, are models which
the children emulate, as they are the children's immediate
point of reference.
Traditional family structures have made possible a division
of labor in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother
is the caretaker for the children. This setup has become more
challenging for such families, especially in challenging
financial times, i.e a recession, but single parents have it
even harder. They are more likely to experience poverty
and the children are more likely to have emotional and
behavioral problems which can disrupt their education
(dropping out of school) and therefore not getting the basis
for a profitable career, making them more susceptible to
longer-lasting poverty, which could last them the rest of their
lives. Some of them even get involved in criminal activity.
The liberals' denial of some family structures being less than
ideal has lead to government policies which have made for
more nontraditional-model families and less of the traditional
-model ones, with all the attendant troubles in the former,
including more dependence upon the government for basic
needs and subsistence. Perhaps now is the best time to
re-channel governmental efforts toward encouraging the
formation and maintenance of the traditional family
structure for single parent families. These families will
benefit by having more stability and more wherewithal
to meet their needs, and taxpayers will have a consider-
ably reduced burden. The only ones who will not be
among the winners in this scenario will be the so-called
anti-poverty advocates who try to get as many impoverished
families as possible onto the welfare rolls and think that is
all that is needed to help them. Such help these families
can do without, the taxpayers can certainly do without
the onerous tax burden, and we all can do without the social
burdens which accompany the present arrangement.
MEM
politicized in the ongoing and escalating political war
over what direction our country should take in establishing
and maintaining a manner of governance. Thus it should
come as no surprise that the family, the bedrock of
American life and society, is now considered to be fair
game for the politicizers, especially those on the Left.
A new poll shows that a paltry 33% of liberals "agree
that marriage is needed to create strong families,"
according to the Institute for Family Studies.
The numbers, by the way, for conservatives are 80%
in agreement and 55% of moderates.
Here, the conservatives hit the bullseye. Children get both
emotional and material security, and indeed a loving
household with a mother who shows lots of sensitivity and
empathy and a father who is engaged and protective.
Now, children who are raised by same-sex parents, or by a
single mother or by other nontraditional arrangements
can be emotionally healthy and well adjusted. That being
said, children need a balance of secure attachment and
healthy separation, which the two-parent family model
certainly provides. Mothers are best at nurturing, while
fathers instruct their children to control their aggression
and become independent, learning to assume responsibility
for their words and actions.
Children of single parents, because of the family makeup
and environment in which they were raised, miss out
on being able to observe a loving relationship between two
adults, and this can pose difficulties for them when they
grow up and form relationships which could lead to starting
families. Adults, especially in families, are models which
the children emulate, as they are the children's immediate
point of reference.
Traditional family structures have made possible a division
of labor in which the father is the breadwinner and the mother
is the caretaker for the children. This setup has become more
challenging for such families, especially in challenging
financial times, i.e a recession, but single parents have it
even harder. They are more likely to experience poverty
and the children are more likely to have emotional and
behavioral problems which can disrupt their education
(dropping out of school) and therefore not getting the basis
for a profitable career, making them more susceptible to
longer-lasting poverty, which could last them the rest of their
lives. Some of them even get involved in criminal activity.
The liberals' denial of some family structures being less than
ideal has lead to government policies which have made for
more nontraditional-model families and less of the traditional
-model ones, with all the attendant troubles in the former,
including more dependence upon the government for basic
needs and subsistence. Perhaps now is the best time to
re-channel governmental efforts toward encouraging the
formation and maintenance of the traditional family
structure for single parent families. These families will
benefit by having more stability and more wherewithal
to meet their needs, and taxpayers will have a consider-
ably reduced burden. The only ones who will not be
among the winners in this scenario will be the so-called
anti-poverty advocates who try to get as many impoverished
families as possible onto the welfare rolls and think that is
all that is needed to help them. Such help these families
can do without, the taxpayers can certainly do without
the onerous tax burden, and we all can do without the social
burdens which accompany the present arrangement.
MEM
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Need Just a Bit of Time
Friends, once again I am having one of those occasions
where I am caught short on time to create a post for your
enjoyment, and I do apologize; this has been an incredibly
hectic week! But don't fret, your faithful Peasant shall be
with you next week with an article so good that you'll find
it worth waiting an extra week for!
In the meantime, know that you, my grand and wonderful
readers, are always on my mind. We'll have a grand time
when I return!
Thanks for your continued friendship, readership, and support!
MEM
where I am caught short on time to create a post for your
enjoyment, and I do apologize; this has been an incredibly
hectic week! But don't fret, your faithful Peasant shall be
with you next week with an article so good that you'll find
it worth waiting an extra week for!
In the meantime, know that you, my grand and wonderful
readers, are always on my mind. We'll have a grand time
when I return!
Thanks for your continued friendship, readership, and support!
MEM
Thursday, October 3, 2019
What Happened to the Moderate Democrats?
Since the Reagan presidency, which marked the ascendancy
of the conservatives in the Republican party and in American
politics, liberal pundits have lamented the decline of both the
numbers and the influence of the moderate/liberal Republicans
in both. George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, John Anderson
(who later left the Republican party to run for the Presidency
against Republican nominee and eventual election winner
Ronald Reagan, and incumbent Democrat President
Jimmy Carter in 1980), and modern era example William
Weld all come to mind when this species of political animal
comes up in conversation. Not adverse to a large and growing
government, very soft and conciliatory on the social issues
i.e. abortion, welfare, and such, and voting in Congress with
the Democrats at least as often as with their own party, these
Republicans (now derisively labeled "RINOS" --- an acronym
meaning Republicans in Name Only) have lost much ground
to their conservative intraparty party foes and much support
from both the party faithful and the general electorate over
recent years.
Meanwhile, there is an ongoing political purge on the Democrats'
side of the aisle in which the Dems are doing all they can to make
their moderates unwelcome; conservative Democrats? They've
either gone over to the GOP, went independent, or just plain faded
away. This, by the way, includes both office seekers and voters.
One such purge effort is currently taking place in Illinois, where
incumbent moderate and pro-life Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski is
facing another bruising re-election bid, again being challenged by
progressive hopeful Marie Newman who unsuccessfully ran against
Rep. Lipinski in their party's 2018 primary despite receiving
considerable funding and publicity from like-minded 3rd District
activists and their organizations, including Planned Parenthood's
PAC. And now they all are waging a second battle to unseat a
Democrat who won't bow to their party's political orthodoxy
and embrace unfettered rights to abortion, among other out-of-
the-mainstream planks in its rickety platform. Lipinski, by the by,
is the last pro-life Democrat presently in the House.
Lipinski edged to victory against Newman in 2018 by 2%, translating
to an approximately 2,000 vote margin in Illinois' 3rd District Dem
primary, but district progressives and some political observers have
suggested that the district has shifted just a bit to the Left, just enough
so that Lipinski could lose this time around. The district, by the by,
is solidly Democratic, so there is no realistic chance of a GOP
nominee winning the seat in the general election. As far as your
observant Peasant is aware, the Republicans therefore are not
planning to field a candidate for that seat.
That said, there are many voters in the Illinois Third that find Rep.
Lipinski too moderate for their tastes; some even say he's a conser-
vative. Well, next to their political leanings I'm sure that Lipinski
looks quite Reaganesque. Of course this is why the Newman bid is
part of the Democrat Party's plan to sweep itself clean of incumbents
and office seekers, as well as party officials who are not sufficiently
left wing, with their stands on abortion being a key litmus test.
And Dan Lipinski, even with his legitimate liberal bona fides,
is right in their crosshairs. He's only moderately liberal, if that,
by today's Democrat Party standards, so he just won't do.
As far as Lipinski's record on other issues of great importance to
the Democrats, there is even more evidence to sufficiently condemn
him as far as the ever-leftward lurching party is concerned; he had
the audacity to vote against Obamacare while supporting the pairing
of religious liberty protections with a big anti-discrimination bill,
the Equality Act (George Orwell, call your office!). Now, Lipinski
in fact supports Obamacare as a compromise alternative to the
Medicare for All scheme which Newman supports, stating that
the latter would "hurt Third District residents by taking away private
health insurance from 170 million Americans and eliminating
Medicare for seniors," while sending most people's taxes on a rocket
ride. Lipinski votes almost entirely with his party in the House, and
has voted only 5% of the time with the wishes of President Trump,
the bane of the far-left contingent which has overtaken the Democrat
Party. But to these raving extremists this is nowhere near good enough,
so Dan Lipinski must go. And did I mention that Rep. Lipinski came
out in opposition to the so-called Green New Deal, a brainchild of
the most radical members of Congress, one of which is a certain
congresswoman from New York City who has been getting a truck
load of press for her unabashedly socialist brand of politics and the
resultant ideas from same, the Green New Deal being but one.
Among the things it is purported to do is to drastically reduce
carbon emissions over the next few decades, resorting to (no blarney!)
doing away with air travel. That's right, the airlines would be put out
of business, leaving buses, trains, and at least for the present cars
as options for long distance travel. I wonder what this radical rep,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has planned for ocean liners? What
would she have people do if they needed to travel to, say, Europe,
Asia, or some other place across an ocean or two? Another black
mark against the veteran Illinois congressman, making another
reason for his radicalized party to purge him from their ranks.
And no lamentation from the aforementioned liberal pundits
re: the decline of the moderate/conservative Democrats.
Oh, and progressive Dem darlings Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and
Sen. Bernie Sanders (technically an independent but votes nearly all
of the time with the Democrats), both presidential candidates, have
endorsed Marie Newman for the party's 3rd District nomination.
Some big guns are trained on Dan Lipinski, who explains his views
and votes thus: "Look, I'm a Democrat because I believe the govern-
ment needs to help people who are in need some way, ... and to me,
protecting the unborn is part of that." And for this noble sentiment
his party wants to send him packing. Let us hope, my great and big-
hearted readers, that the people of Dan Lipinski's district will once
again him to Congress, because he has truly shown the humanity
which the farther-left types in the Democrat Party boast having but
not possessing. This veteran House member has truly demonstrated
his concern and care for the smallest and weakest among us; trying
to make government responsive and of service to all, be they already
born or waiting to be born.
This is what liberals used to be like. Dan Lipinski is a member of a
dying breed, soon to become extinct if the more extreme elements
currently in charge of the Democrat Party get their way. They have
already primaried many members of Congress like Dan Lipinski,
replacing them with substantially more left-leaning candidates
like Ocasio-Cortez. And the result of all this is the loss of one of
the country's two major political parties to extremism, following
its flirtation with totalitarianism. If past presidents Franklin D.
Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were to come back to life today
and see their party the way it now is, they would suffer from
something far worse than culture shock; they would weep for
their Democrat Party and for the country over its embrace of
ideas and positions most Americans would never so do. And
their party's present leaders along with the present rank-and-filers
would tell them to get their right-wing selves out and don't get
hit by the door as they exit.
The price of extremism is frighteningly high. And in tacking
farther leftward every day, jettisoning sensible, more mainstream
reliables such as Rep. Dan Lipinski from their ranks, the
Democrats are digging their political grave. With their radical
blinders over their eyes, they are unable to see what they are
doing to themselves. But the people see, and they shall respond
at election time by turning their backs on the Democrats for
their infatuation with ideas alien to the American ethos while
turning their backs on the people, along with a deaf ear on their
wishes and concerns. Some Americans may desire a robust,
active government, but most want no part of a government so big
that its activity encroaches upon their liberty and prosperity.
This is something that the Democrats have thus far failed to
grasp, and it shall prove to be their undoing.
MEM
of the conservatives in the Republican party and in American
politics, liberal pundits have lamented the decline of both the
numbers and the influence of the moderate/liberal Republicans
in both. George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, John Anderson
(who later left the Republican party to run for the Presidency
against Republican nominee and eventual election winner
Ronald Reagan, and incumbent Democrat President
Jimmy Carter in 1980), and modern era example William
Weld all come to mind when this species of political animal
comes up in conversation. Not adverse to a large and growing
government, very soft and conciliatory on the social issues
i.e. abortion, welfare, and such, and voting in Congress with
the Democrats at least as often as with their own party, these
Republicans (now derisively labeled "RINOS" --- an acronym
meaning Republicans in Name Only) have lost much ground
to their conservative intraparty party foes and much support
from both the party faithful and the general electorate over
recent years.
Meanwhile, there is an ongoing political purge on the Democrats'
side of the aisle in which the Dems are doing all they can to make
their moderates unwelcome; conservative Democrats? They've
either gone over to the GOP, went independent, or just plain faded
away. This, by the way, includes both office seekers and voters.
One such purge effort is currently taking place in Illinois, where
incumbent moderate and pro-life Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski is
facing another bruising re-election bid, again being challenged by
progressive hopeful Marie Newman who unsuccessfully ran against
Rep. Lipinski in their party's 2018 primary despite receiving
considerable funding and publicity from like-minded 3rd District
activists and their organizations, including Planned Parenthood's
PAC. And now they all are waging a second battle to unseat a
Democrat who won't bow to their party's political orthodoxy
and embrace unfettered rights to abortion, among other out-of-
the-mainstream planks in its rickety platform. Lipinski, by the by,
is the last pro-life Democrat presently in the House.
Lipinski edged to victory against Newman in 2018 by 2%, translating
to an approximately 2,000 vote margin in Illinois' 3rd District Dem
primary, but district progressives and some political observers have
suggested that the district has shifted just a bit to the Left, just enough
so that Lipinski could lose this time around. The district, by the by,
is solidly Democratic, so there is no realistic chance of a GOP
nominee winning the seat in the general election. As far as your
observant Peasant is aware, the Republicans therefore are not
planning to field a candidate for that seat.
That said, there are many voters in the Illinois Third that find Rep.
Lipinski too moderate for their tastes; some even say he's a conser-
vative. Well, next to their political leanings I'm sure that Lipinski
looks quite Reaganesque. Of course this is why the Newman bid is
part of the Democrat Party's plan to sweep itself clean of incumbents
and office seekers, as well as party officials who are not sufficiently
left wing, with their stands on abortion being a key litmus test.
And Dan Lipinski, even with his legitimate liberal bona fides,
is right in their crosshairs. He's only moderately liberal, if that,
by today's Democrat Party standards, so he just won't do.
As far as Lipinski's record on other issues of great importance to
the Democrats, there is even more evidence to sufficiently condemn
him as far as the ever-leftward lurching party is concerned; he had
the audacity to vote against Obamacare while supporting the pairing
of religious liberty protections with a big anti-discrimination bill,
the Equality Act (George Orwell, call your office!). Now, Lipinski
in fact supports Obamacare as a compromise alternative to the
Medicare for All scheme which Newman supports, stating that
the latter would "hurt Third District residents by taking away private
health insurance from 170 million Americans and eliminating
Medicare for seniors," while sending most people's taxes on a rocket
ride. Lipinski votes almost entirely with his party in the House, and
has voted only 5% of the time with the wishes of President Trump,
the bane of the far-left contingent which has overtaken the Democrat
Party. But to these raving extremists this is nowhere near good enough,
so Dan Lipinski must go. And did I mention that Rep. Lipinski came
out in opposition to the so-called Green New Deal, a brainchild of
the most radical members of Congress, one of which is a certain
congresswoman from New York City who has been getting a truck
load of press for her unabashedly socialist brand of politics and the
resultant ideas from same, the Green New Deal being but one.
Among the things it is purported to do is to drastically reduce
carbon emissions over the next few decades, resorting to (no blarney!)
doing away with air travel. That's right, the airlines would be put out
of business, leaving buses, trains, and at least for the present cars
as options for long distance travel. I wonder what this radical rep,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has planned for ocean liners? What
would she have people do if they needed to travel to, say, Europe,
Asia, or some other place across an ocean or two? Another black
mark against the veteran Illinois congressman, making another
reason for his radicalized party to purge him from their ranks.
And no lamentation from the aforementioned liberal pundits
re: the decline of the moderate/conservative Democrats.
Oh, and progressive Dem darlings Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and
Sen. Bernie Sanders (technically an independent but votes nearly all
of the time with the Democrats), both presidential candidates, have
endorsed Marie Newman for the party's 3rd District nomination.
Some big guns are trained on Dan Lipinski, who explains his views
and votes thus: "Look, I'm a Democrat because I believe the govern-
ment needs to help people who are in need some way, ... and to me,
protecting the unborn is part of that." And for this noble sentiment
his party wants to send him packing. Let us hope, my great and big-
hearted readers, that the people of Dan Lipinski's district will once
again him to Congress, because he has truly shown the humanity
which the farther-left types in the Democrat Party boast having but
not possessing. This veteran House member has truly demonstrated
his concern and care for the smallest and weakest among us; trying
to make government responsive and of service to all, be they already
born or waiting to be born.
This is what liberals used to be like. Dan Lipinski is a member of a
dying breed, soon to become extinct if the more extreme elements
currently in charge of the Democrat Party get their way. They have
already primaried many members of Congress like Dan Lipinski,
replacing them with substantially more left-leaning candidates
like Ocasio-Cortez. And the result of all this is the loss of one of
the country's two major political parties to extremism, following
its flirtation with totalitarianism. If past presidents Franklin D.
Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were to come back to life today
and see their party the way it now is, they would suffer from
something far worse than culture shock; they would weep for
their Democrat Party and for the country over its embrace of
ideas and positions most Americans would never so do. And
their party's present leaders along with the present rank-and-filers
would tell them to get their right-wing selves out and don't get
hit by the door as they exit.
The price of extremism is frighteningly high. And in tacking
farther leftward every day, jettisoning sensible, more mainstream
reliables such as Rep. Dan Lipinski from their ranks, the
Democrats are digging their political grave. With their radical
blinders over their eyes, they are unable to see what they are
doing to themselves. But the people see, and they shall respond
at election time by turning their backs on the Democrats for
their infatuation with ideas alien to the American ethos while
turning their backs on the people, along with a deaf ear on their
wishes and concerns. Some Americans may desire a robust,
active government, but most want no part of a government so big
that its activity encroaches upon their liberty and prosperity.
This is something that the Democrats have thus far failed to
grasp, and it shall prove to be their undoing.
MEM
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